From Mary Karr, the prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of The Liars' Club and Cherry, comes the paperback edition of Sinners Welcome, her fourth and most recent collection of poetry. Published to coincide with the hardcover release of her newest memoir, Lit, Sinners Welcome traces her improbable journey from a tormented childhood into a resolutely irreverent Catholicism.
Read More
From Mary Karr, the prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of The Liars' Club and Cherry, comes the paperback edition of Sinners Welcome, her fourth and most recent collection of poetry. Published to coincide with the hardcover release of her newest memoir, Lit, Sinners Welcome traces her improbable journey from a tormented childhood into a resolutely irreverent Catholicism.
Read Less
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $8.69, good condition, Sold by GreatBookPricesUK5 rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Castle Donington, DERBYSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2009 by Harper Perennial.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 112 p. Contains: Illustrations, black & white. May show signs of wear, highlighting, writing, and previous use. This item may be a former library book with typical markings. No guarantee on products that contain supplements Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Twenty-five year bookseller with shipments to over fifty million happy customers.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $7.99, fair condition, Sold by Dream Books Co. rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Denver, CO, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Perennial.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fair. This copy has clearly been enjoyed-expect noticeable shelf wear and some minor creases to the cover. Binding is strong and all pages are legible. May contain previous library markings or stamps.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $9.96, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Austell, GA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Perennial.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $9.96, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Perennial.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $9.96, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Perennial.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome: Poems to cart. $10.00, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Harper Perennial.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $10.45, fair condition, Sold by Goodwill Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Hillsboro, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Harper Perennial.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome: Poems to cart. $11.49, good condition, Sold by St. Vinnie's Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eugene, OR, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Harper Perennial.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. FRONT COVER HAS A CREASE IN IT BUT REMAINS IN GOOD READABLE CONDITION. Paperback This item shows wear from consistent use but remains in good readable condition. It may have marks on or in it, and may show other signs of previous use or shelf wear. May have minor creases or signs of wear on dust jacket. Packed with care, shipped promptly.
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome to cart. $15.22, good condition, Sold by SurplusTextSeller rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MO, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Harper Perennial.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes).
Add this copy of Sinners Welcome [Paperback] Karr, Mary to cart. $14.00, very good condition, Sold by Affordable Products rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Millbury, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Perennial.
In this short volume of confessional poetry, Mary Karr describes her difficult conversion from irreverence and agnosticism to Catholicism. Karr is Professor of English at Syracuse University, the author of several earlier books of poetry and memoirs, and the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. The volume also includes an Afterword consisting of an essay Karr wrote for "Poetry" magazine: "Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer" in which she describes in prose her religious conversion and the relationship she sees between poetry and religion. The essay rambles, and I found some of its colloquial, rough-talking character forced. It works far less well than the poems in this collection, which are generally moving and restrained.
Karr converted in mid-life. Prior to her conversion, her life was marked by a difficult childhood in a small Texas town, an ambiguous and violent relationship with her mother, unhappy sexual relationships, a failed marriage, and heavy drinking. In short poems, she writes about her early life experiences from the standpoint of her newfound life -- following her conversion. The poems are tart and sharp but they include an undercurrent of reflection and compassion.
Karr also writes poems describing her life following her conversion. Karr is emphatic that prayer and religious experience have not taken her from the realm of earthly sorrow. Karr describes her life as a single mother, her hopes for her son, and her loneliness when he leaves for college. She describes her continued and frequently unhappy experiences with lovers, and her ongoing difficulties with alcohol. Karr struggles with her religious faith as she struggles with events in her life. But she receives, undeniably, comfort in the church and in her personal experience of prayer.
Karr's autobiographical sequence of poems in this collection is punctuated by a series of five separate poems called "Descending Theology" which reflect upon the Nativity, the Life of Jesus,, the Betrayal, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. These poems are meditative in character and based, Karr tells us, on her eight-month study of Jesuit prayer. These five poems reflect upon and illuminate the way in which Karr responds to her experiences in the personal, confessional poems.
Many of the poems in this collection are harsh and tough-minded. Karr describes well her friends, family, and acquaintances as well as her own life. I tended to like best the poems with a more reflective tone. One of my favorites was "Elegy for a Rain Salesman" in which Karr puts the following words into the mouth of a recently-deceased friend:
"... I wanted to be a rain salesman,
carrying my satchel full of rain from door to door,
selling, thunder, selling the way air feels after a downpour,
but there are no openings in the rain department,
and so they left me dying behind this desk -- adding bleeps,
subtracting chunks -- and I would give a bowl of wild blossoms,
some rain, and two shakes of my fist at the sky to be living ..."
As I am, Karr is an admirer of the concert pianist, Awadagin Pratt. Her poem "A Major" celebrates her experience in hearing Pratt perform in a way that I understand first-hand. The poem begins: "I've come to see a dread-locked man/play Mozart like a demon(someone said) with angels/harrowing his back, or like a seraph/ sought by succubi." Karr concludes her experience with Pratt's performance:
"He's sprung our sternums wide
and freed us from our numbered seats.
We levitate as one and try to match
the thunder in his chest
with all our hands."
Some of the other poems I especially liked include "Hypertrophied Football Star as Serial Killer" the mystical and almost erotic title poem, "Sinners Welcome", "Winters Term End" which describes Karr's responses to the literary enthusiasms of a young student, and the religiously symbolic "For a Dying Tomcat Who's Relinquished his Former Hissing and Predatory Nature."
I had the good fortune to read this book at the same time that I was working through William James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience." James's book includes a lengthy discussion of religious conversion and awakening which distinguishes between a gradual conversion process and an instantaneous conversion experience. Karr's conversion fits the former pattern as James explained it. I found Karr's poetry and James's philosophy mutually illuminating. Readers interested in the extensive religious poetry written in the United States may also wish to explore the recent Library of America volume, "American Religious Poems: An Anthology" edited by Harold Bloom.
